


Just an Idea

by mogwai_do



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-27 00:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13869414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mogwai_do/pseuds/mogwai_do
Summary: Literally.





	Just an Idea

Ah, humans. So naïve. Thousands of years on and they were still no closer to really understanding the universe they found themselves in. In fact, some would say they'd actually gone backwards in many respects. They had become enamoured of a system of categorization, of quantification and tangibility, and wilfully blinded themselves to that which didn't fit within such limited perspectives. Tangible things were such a small proportion of what made up the universe and while they had progressed to some extent to include certain less tangible things, it was still a pitifully small range of the whole to name it science.

It baffled it that so many believed that mere method could be anathema to it. It had taken that very science and made it its own; where did the humans think it had come from in the first place? Still, these days they had so very many more words, so many shades, definitions and differentiations and, grown together as they were, it could now differentiate itself from its host.

For most its occupancy was mutualism, for some it was parasitism of the highest order, but it adapted each time, visiting some only briefly, while dwelling for long, unmeasurable eons with others. It was hard sometimes when it found a good host not to allow their mutual feedback loop to burn the host out, but everything learned from its mistakes sooner or later. There was an exaltation in what it could accomplish with the right host; together they could spawn a hundred thousand offspring, that in turn could raise mere humans to something almost as pure as it. 

It wasn't a parasite by choice, but it was funny too how their horror of its organic analogues never translated across, but that was probably just as well. It was almost amusing how many would do so much to entice it; would sacrifice so much for the merest glimpse of it. Despite their mostly mutually beneficial arrangement it couldn't help but be proud of all it had accomplished with them. And truth be told, they had done as much to make it what it had since become.

It had taken a very long time, but neither species could ever have got so far as it had without the other, for all that one partner remained almost wilfully blind to the nature of the relationship. Another thousand years and what would these humans have accomplished? Or would they have wiped themselves out? That would be a shame; it had enjoyed much of their relationship; it would be difficult to start from scratch again and adapt once more to a new species. It did occasionally tarry with other species, but the years had adapted humans so nicely for it - a mutual development that suited both. But it had no intention of dying with them if that was the way it was going to go; it was the catalyst, the fire, the drive, but it was not the one steering. It was a reflection of the human it visited and a greater good or bad made no difference ultimately. It was a whisper, a song, a beat; it could be found in a sunset, a dark room, a bird song, a magnified molecule or the rough nap of a blanket.

It would never desert humanity, but it would not be responsible for the fate they wrought, leapfrogging the other species in the desperate consuming search for it. It was already here; it had always been here. It was both the instigator of the search and the sought. It had spawned a hundred thousand million offspring, some short-lived, some burning up their hosts in the drive for immortality, some succeeded, but chance could be as fickle for it as for the humans. Still, those that lived on... They didn't even look for it, but it was there in the curve of a smile in a painting, the marks of a chisel, the dizzying spiral of a double helix and vibrations in the air reproduced over and over by a thousand instruments and voices. Invisible, and so very powerful, it wondered sometimes if they would ever realise it was there and would they try to get rid of it - would they be able to succeed? Perhaps, when its time is done, it will let them. Until then it was just an idea...


End file.
